As teary-eyed fellow students held up lit candles Tuesday night and chanted, “Mallory, we love you,” the girl who was slashed in the throat by a teen at Montrose High School in an apparent random attack stood up in her hospital room and waved to classmates.

It was a dramatic and heartwarming ending to a tense day in which a 14-year-old boy calmly walked into the entrance of the school Tuesday morning, grabbed Mallory Haulman from behind and slit her throat in front of her sister and dozens of classmates.

The 17-year-old junior was rushed by ambulance in serious condition to Montrose Memorial Hospital, where she underwent several hours of surgery and is now recovering, said William Woody, a family friend who also works with the girl’s father at the Montrose newspaper.

The suspect was arrested shortly after the attack near the high school at 600 S. Selig St., according to authorities.

Tuesday night, as many as 400 parents of students attended a meeting at the high school. Many of them were upset that they were not warned through reverse 911 calls or text messaging that the assault had occurred. School district officials explained that although they have the technology to warn parents, it was not set up.

Some parents noted that they were dropping their kids off at the same entrance where the slashing was taking place just inside.

While parents met with school officials, about 60 or 70 students went to the hospital to show support for Mallory.

A large bandage could be seen around her throat as she stood and waved.

The suspect is being held in a juvenile-detention facility for investigation of first-degree assault, said Kathi Kinkel, a Montrose police spokeswoman. His motive was unknown.

“It’s not known whether the two knew each other,” she said.

School was closed for the day and students sent home, said Linda Gann, spokeswoman for the Montrose County School District.

Paola Gomez, a sophomore at the school, said she saw the boy enter the school about 8 a.m., 25 minutes before the start of classes, wearing navy blue Dickies pants and a blue baseball cap worn backward.

“He, like, walks in real calmly like he is a student. She was walking away from him. He calmly walks up to her and grabbed her by the throat,” Gomez said. “He pulled her head back and slit her throat.”

She said Mallory dropped her books, held her throat and began screaming, ” ‘Oh, my God! Someone help me!’ ” A girl who had been walking with her was screaming, “My sister! My sister!”

The assailant turned around and looked straight into Gomez’s eyes “as if nothing happened and calmly walked out of the building,” she recounted. “We made eye contact. It was spooky.”

The hallway was very full, Gann said.

Gomez said that as the suspect walked out of the school, she was trying to get kids to go after him while other students helped Mallory. “He just disappeared,” she said. “There was a bunch of blood everywhere.”

Blood was spurting out of Mallory’s neck and puddling on the floor, Gomez said. The cut on her neck was very deep.

A patrol officer spotted the suspect moments after he left the school, and the boy immediately started running away, Kinkel said. The officer chased the boy and arrested him, she said.

A school resource officer was on duty at the school at the time of the assault. Kinkel said she could not comment on whether he was involved in the arrest.

“I’m still pretty shocked and kind of scared,” Gomez said. “It’s overwhelming. I hope she will be OK.”

The suspect has been staying at “a lot of different facilities” including one in Grand Junction, Gann said. She said she could not describe the facilities where he has been attending school.

His first day at Vista Charter School in Montrose was Monday, Gann said. The name of the suspect has not been released, because he is a juvenile, Kinkel said.

Mallory Haulman did not know the suspect, said Woody, the family friend.

Kirk Mitchell is a general assignment reporter at The Denver Post who focuses on criminal justice stories. He began working at the newspaper in 1998, after writing for newspapers in Mesa, Ariz., and Twin Falls, Idaho, and The Associated Press in Salt Lake City. Mitchell first started writing the Cold Case blog in Fall 2007, in part because Colorado has more than 1,400 unsolved homicides.

More in News

A wedding and special events’ planning business has agreed to pay a $200,000 settlement to five employees living in the country illegally after allegedly failing to pay them minimum wages and overtime and discriminating against them because of their race.

The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.